KEY POINTS:
The Government has agreed sedition laws should be removed from the statutes.
Prime Minister Helen Clark says the Cabinet agreed yesterday on its response to a Law Commission's report calling for the repeal of the legislation.
"The Government agrees that the law on sedition should be repealed. It is an out-of-date piece of law and offences which need to be prosecuted can be prosecuted under other legislation," Helen Clark said.
The Government response to the Law Commission report would be tabled in Parliament this week.
Green MP Keith Locke welcomed the decision.
"Traditionally the sedition laws were used by the governments of the day to suppress political dissent, so this marks a victory for free speech and the right to dissent," he said.
"It is particularly fitting that this step is being taken by a Labour-led Government given that three of Helen Clark's predecessors as leader of the Labour Party were prosecuted under the same sedition laws that she is now consigning to the dustbin of history."
The Greens, United Future, Act and the Maori Party last month held a joint press conference to call for the repeal of the laws.
Sedition is an ancient law intended to protect the Crown from attempts to undermine its authority. In New Zealand it also stands as an offence against inciting lawlessness and disorder.
When the Law Commission presented its report on April 5, its president, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, said it was "high time" the laws were abolished.
The Law Commission began its review of the laws last year, after a man was found guilty of sedition for putting an axe through the window of Helen Clark's electorate office opposite Eden Park in Sandringham and issuing a pamphlet calling on others to commit similar acts.
- NZPA
